Serpent and the Rainbow, The
| running time = 98 min. | country = USA | language = English | budget = | gross revenue = | preceded by = | followed by = }} The Serpent and the Rainbow is an American feature film of the supernatural thriller genre. It is inspired by the novel of the same name by author Wade Davis. The movie was directed by Wes Craven with a screenplay written by Richard Maxwell and A.R. Simoun. It was produced by Universal Pictures and released theatrically in the United States on February 5th, 1988. The movie stars Bill Pullman as Dennis Alan, Cathy Tyson as Marielle Duchamp, Zakes Mokae as Dargent Peytraud, Paul Winfield as Lucien Celine, and Brent Jennings as Louis Mozart. Synopsis In the year 1978, a man from Haiti named Christophe dies in a French missionary clinic under mysterious circumstances. Outside, a voodoo parade marches past his window. The following morning, Christophe is buried in a traditional Catholic funeral. A stranged man dressed in a suit who was outside Christophe's hospital window on the night he died is in attendance. As the coffin is lowered into the ground, Christophe's eyes open and tears roll down his cheeks. Seven years later in 1985, Harvard anthropologist Dennis Alan is in the Amazon rainforest studying rare herbs and medicines with a local shaman. He drinks a potion and experiences an hallucination of the same black man from Christophe's funeral, surrounded by corpses in a bottomless pit. Back in Boston, Alan is approached by a pharmaceutical company looking to investigate a drug used in Haitian Vodou to create zombies. The company wants Alan to acquire the drug for use as a "super anesthetic". The corporation provides Alan with funding and sends him to Haiti, which is in the middle of a revolution. Alan's exploration in Haiti, assisted by Doctor Marielle, locates Christophe who is alive after having been buried seven years earlier. Alan is taken into custody, and the commander of the Tonton Macoute, Captain Dargent Peytraud – the same man from Christophe's funeral and Alan's vision - warns Alan to leave Haiti. Continuing his investigation, Alan finds a local man, Mozart, who is reported to have knowledge of the procedure for creating the zombie drug. Alan pays Mozart for a sample, but Mozart sells him rat poison instead. After embarrassing Mozart in public, Alan convinces Mozart to show Alan how to produce the drug for a fee of $1,000. Alan is arrested again by the Tonton Macoutes, tortured, and dumped on a street with the message that he must leave Haiti or be killed. Alan still refuses to leave and meets with Mozart to create the drug. Alan has a nightmare of Peytraud, revealed to be a bokor who turns enemies into zombies and steals their souls. When Alan wakes up, he is lying next to Christophe's sister who has been decapitated. The Tonton Macoutes enter, take photos, and frame Alan for murder. Peytraud tells Alan to leave the country and never return, lest he be convicted of the murder, executed, and then his soul stolen by Peytraud. He puts Alan on a plane, but Mozart sneaks onboard and gives Alan the zombie drug. Mozart asks Alan to tell people about him, so that Mozart can achieve international fame. Alan agrees and returns to Boston with his mission apparently completed. At a celebration dinner, the wife of Alan's employer is possessed by Peytraud, who warns Alan of his own imminent death. Alan returns to Haiti, where his only ally, a houngan named Lucien Celine, is killed by Peytraud and Mozart is beheaded as a sacrifice for Peytraud's power. Alan is then sprayed with the zombie powder and dies; later, Peytraud steals Alan's body from a medical clinic before Alan's death can be reported to the US Embassy. Peytraud takes Alan to a graveyard where, helpless in his coffin, Alan sees that Peytraud has captured Marielle and will sacrifice her. Peytraud shows Alan Celine's soul in a canari. Alan is then buried alive with a tarantula to "keep him company". Waking up in his coffin a few hours later, Alan is rescued by Christophe who was also turned into a zombie by Peytraud. Having escaped Peytraud's trap, Alan returns to the Tonton Macoute headquarters looking for Marielle. There, Alan defeats Peytraud and sends his soul to Hell. As the Haitian people celebrate the downfall of Jean-Claude Duvalier, Marielle proclaims "The nightmare is over". Cast Notes & Trivia * The Serpent and the Rainbow is inspired by the non-fiction anthropological study The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harvard Scientist's Astonishing Journey into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombies, and Magic by author Wade Davis, which was first published by Simon & Schuster in hardcover edition in 1985. * The Serpent and the Rainbow, Serpent and the Rainbow, Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) and The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) all redirect to this page. * The tagline for this film is "Don't bury me... I'm not dead!" * There are a total of sixty-two credited cast members in this movie. * Production on The Serpent and the Rainbow began on March 16th, 1987. This is also the exact same day that production began on Return of the Living Dead Part II. * The movie was shot primarily in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, as well as in Haiti. U.S. scenes were filmed in Boston, Massachusetts. * The original running time for the movie clocked in at just under three hours. Director Wes Craven felt that this was too long, and edited it down to ninety-eight minutes. * During production in Haiti, the local government informed the cast and crew that they could not guarantee their safety for the remainder of the film's shoot because of the political strife and civil turmoil that was occurring during that time * The Serpent and the Rainbow was first released on DVD by Image Entertainment in 1998. * Screenplay writer Adam Rodman is credited as A.R. Simoun in this film. * Actress Kimberleigh Aarn is credited as Kimberleigh Burroughs in this film. * Actor Johnny Pephanon is credited as Johnny Pephanor in this movie. * At its widest release, The Serpent and the Rainbow was screened in 1,431 theaters. * This is Wes Craven's ninth horror film as a director. He previously Deadly Friend in 1986. His next movie is 1989's Shocker. * This is writer Richard Maxwell's second film screenplay. It his first work in the horror genre. He previously wrote the movie The Challenge in 1982. * An article about The Serpent and the Rainbow was featured in issue #71 of Fangoria magazine. * This is actor Bill Pullman's third film role after Ruthless People and Spaceballs. It is his first work in the horror genre. He will go on to appear in films such as Brain Dead, Casper, Lake Placid and the U.S. remake of The Grudge in 2004. * This is A.R. Simoun's first, and to date, only film work as a writer. * This is actress Cathy Tyson's first work in the horror genre. * The Bizango is a secret society within the Voodoo culture/religion. Recommendations External Links * * * The Serpent and the Rainbow at Wikipedia * * * References 1970s | 1978 | 1980s | 1985 | Amazon Jungle | Amazon River | Boston | Buried alive | Burn victim | Cemetery | Chickens | Coffin | Corpse | Dancer | Decapitation | Doctor | Dreams | Fish | Funeral | Genitalia mutilation | Goats | Haiti | Hallucinations | Houngan | Jaguars | Machete | Magic potion | Massachusetts | Mutilation | Newscaster | Nightmares | Nurse | Occult | Pistol | Poison | Police officer | Port-au-Prince | Possession | Priest | Ritualism | Self mutilation | Skull | Snakes | South America | Spiders | Stabbings | Torture | Undead | Voodoo | Waiter | Whore | Zombies Video